Description

iTunes U provides everything an instructor needs to bring their classroom together on iPad—build lessons with apps and your own materials, collect and grade assignments from students, discuss one-on-one or in groups, and annotate PDF assignments.

iTunes U is also still the place where anyone with an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch can learn from the world’s largest collection of free education content—including public courses and collections from leading schools, universities, museums, and cultural institutions.

For Instructors:
• Plan lessons, grade assignments, and stay connected—all right from your iPad
• Add your own teaching materials—including documents, worksheets, web links, photos, and videos
• Engage every learner by including apps, books, videos, podcasts and more from iTunes, App Store, and iBooks
• Add instructions or comments to PDFs with built-in annotation tools
• See when students have viewed their assignments, completed their work, or remind them when they are due
• Use the integrated grade book to enter grades as you go and track the progress of your entire class at a glance
• Use the single-student view to offer private and individual attention for quick check-ins or parent-teacher conferences
• Answer individual questions in one-on-one chats or start debates with the entire class using group discussions
• Keep students in the loop and prepared for class with notifications
• Teachers affiliated with qualified institutions can publish courses to the iTunes U catalog to make them available everyone for free.

For Students:
• See your assignments and instructor updates in one place, and check off assignments as you complete them
• Submit your work from any Apple creativity app, dozens of third-party apps, or as annotated PDFs for private courses
• Ask instructors questions or have them review your work outside of class time with one-to-one discussions
• Start or join in on group discussions with the whole class
• See your graded results for all past assignments

Browse the world’s largest catalog of free education content:
• Choose from more than 1 million free lectures, videos, books, and other resources on thousands of subjects from Algebra to Zoology from educational and cultural institutions around the world
• Share your favorite courses with friends using Twitter, Facebook, Mail, and Messages
• iTunes U includes materials from Stanford, Yale, MIT, Oxford, McGill University, La Trobe University, University of Tokyo, Museo Nacional del Prado, Smithsonian Libraries, National Theatre, Library of Congress, and many more

Requirements:
• Participating in courses requires iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch with iOS 8.3 or later
• Creating courses requires iPad with iOS 8.3 or later
• Built-in PDF annotation requires iPad (3rd generation) or later, iPad mini 2 or later
• An Apple ID set up for use on the iTunes Store
• iTunes 12 or later is required to sync with a computer
• Publishing public courses to iTunes U requires teachers to be affiliated with a qualified institution

What's new in version 3.0

This update includes the following features:
• Students can hand in their homework assignments
• Annotate PDF assignments directly in iTunes U
• Instructors can grade and track student progress with an integrated grade book
• Private one-on-one conversations between students and instructors
• Include multiple attachments per assignment

I absolutely love this app! Many of the available courses are somewhat dated. For example, I'm currently listening to a 2007 Stanford course on the future of the internet. That said, I'm currently listening to a Stanford course on the future of the internet, but doing so for free. Many schools have made older courses available on the internet for free, but this app is great at organizing everything that I want to study. There are many topics to explore, and many from prestigious universities, such as MIT, Harvard, and the aforementioned Stanford. Also, the ability to listen to them in 1.5x or 2x speed is also quite wonderful.

Not entirely sure how I feel about this app. I think I want to like it but it's one of those gems that Apple has under utilize but has great potential. I look forward to see if they improve on this feature and service.